


You've Got To Be Carefully Taught

by hollimichele



Series: Don't Be Shocked When Your Hist'ry Book Mentions Me [10]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda, Real Person Fiction, Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Gen, supernatural bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 18:11:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5938072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollimichele/pseuds/hollimichele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mrs. Alston wasn’t much for nostalgia. But she did approve of elegance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You've Got To Be Carefully Taught

The sleek black car let Mrs. Alston out right at the door of the bank. It was technically a No Stopping zone, but that wasn’t the sort of thing Mrs. Alston ever worried about. “Forty minutes will be plenty, thank you,” she told the driver, and let him open the door and help her out.

To look at her, Mrs. Alston was every inch the sleek New York society lady: she wore her steel-gray hair in a bob sharp enough to cut glass; her clothes were the sort of drapey monochrome things that looked effortless and cost a fortune, and her handbag was beyond reproach. She made it from curb to door without the piles of muddy slush around her daring to leave so much as a speck on the heels of her boots, a skill that only lifelong New Yorkers could even attempt to cultivate.

Mrs. Alston was certainly a lifelong New Yorker, and for a longer life than most.

Inside, the bank manager straightened up behind her desk when she caught sight of Mrs. Alston; she was the kind of person who improved the posture of those around her just by her presence. “Can I help you today, ma’am?” the manager asked, trying to hold her shoulders right.

These young people could never get the trick of it. If you hadn’t at least worn a girdle from girlhood, you never would, as far as Mrs. Alston could tell. Her own carriage, of course, was elegant as a ballerina’s, if the ballerina had been discreetly reinforced with steel beams.

It wasn’t that she _missed_ girdles, exactly, and she’d certainly been relieved to see corsets fall out of fashion. Mrs. Alston wasn’t much for nostalgia. But she did approve of elegance.

Mrs. Alston told the bank manager she wanted to check on some accounts, and she’d need a little time with one of her safe deposit boxes. “Of course, ma’am,” said the manager, and did everything with an efficiency that Mrs. Alston approved of. People tended to get flustered around her, for some reason, so it was always nice to see someone maintain their composure properly.

On her way back to the vault, Mrs. Alston’s phone chimed discreetly at her. She took it out and sighed. Poor old Marie was still wailing about that trouble at the Schuyler house over the holidays; it was starting to get irritating. Mrs. Alston could have told her — and had, more than once — that haunting that place for years on end wasn’t going to get Marie what she wanted. 

If there was anything in Peggy Schuyler’s spellbook worth having, Mrs. Alston would know, and would probably have secured it for her own library decades ago. But Marie wasn’t well-known for listening to reason, which was why Mrs. Alston never bothered to spend time with her socially anymore. That, and her mediocre hostessing: perpetually dry sandwiches, and an understocked drinks cabinet.

She set her phone to silent, and tutted to herself. Poor Marie. What a waste of talent. Behind her, the security guard straightened his tie and tugged at his lapels without seeming to realize he was doing it. 

Inside the vault, with the manager waiting by the door, Mrs. Alston produced a key and unlocked the box she had asked for. Inside was a yellowing steno pad, densely written; a small velvet bag, its pile worn bare in spots, that clinked when it shifted; and a pair of glasses in an antique style. 

Mrs. Alston took a fat blue envelope, a little faded with age, out of her purse. She set it down on top of the steno pad, then closed and locked the box. “That will do,” she told the manager. “Thank you, dear.”

She had a few other small pieces of business to conduct, but they didn’t take long. On her way out, Mrs. Alston paused, as if she’d just remembered something. “Oh, and one other thing,” she said. The bank manager, who by now had seen her account balances, straightened to attention again.

“My brother’s going to be in town in a few weeks,” Mrs. Alston said. “He’s terribly forgetful, and I just know he’ll only do half the things he means to and have to come back later. If you happen to be working when he comes in, could you do me a tremendous favor and remind him to check the safe deposit box?”

“Of course, Mrs. Alston,” said the bank manager, keen as anything. “What’s his name?”

Mrs. Alston told her. “And if I know him, he’ll forget his key or his code or both. Can I trust you to remind him that the code is his wife’s birthday, as well?”

“Absolutely, ma’am,” said the manager. “I’ll make sure whoever’s working that day knows, too, even if I’m not there.”

“Thank you, dear, you’re a lifesaver,” Mrs. Alston said. She tucked her own key back into her purse, in her wallet behind her passport and her ID.

The trick to setting up a false identity, in this modern age, was to start early. Mrs. Alston’s paper trail was perfect, and it would stand up to any scrutiny. She had a valid birth certificate, social security number, and passport; her vaccination records were on file, as were her marriage and divorce and all her tax returns. She lived off the income of a well-managed trust and a few key investments, with every i dotted and every t crossed.

She also had an entirely nonexistent daughter, whose records were likewise flawless. In another twenty years or so, Mrs. Alston could dye her hair black, shed Esther Fawcett Alston like an out-of-style coat, and step into Theodora Alston Bartow as smoothly as she stepped into a shining black town car.

She hoped Alexander Hamilton wouldn’t mind being her brother, on paper, or eventually her uncle if he lived long enough. Well, no, that wasn’t true. She didn’t care if he minded. But she owed his wife a favor, and she had liked the woman enough to actually pay it out. 

And it might be entertaining to watch, since Hamilton would undoubtedly throw himself headlong after any hint of a clue that might have been left by his dear Eliza. That didn’t mean Mrs. Alston wanted any more than a spectator’s role, though.

Mrs. Alston enjoyed her life. She did exactly as she pleased, lived comfortably, and pursued her own amusements. Every decade or so some bright young thing would seek her out and earnestly beg her for magical instruction. If they looked promising enough, she’d even teach them a generous fraction of what she knew. 

Of course, very few of them lived up to their promise. Thankfully, most only proved incompetent, but some had abused her generosity outrageously over the years: trying to kill her, or raise armies of the undead, or draw the five boroughs into a fiendish netherworld of their own devising. 

Mrs. Alston did not suffer fools gladly, so when this sort of thing happened, she generally consumed the idiot apprentice’s life-force and imprisoned the remnants of their soul in the nearest small trinket to hand. At this point most of her hand mirrors had malevolent warlocks in them, which was annoying, but served them right.

The main thing that distinguished Mrs. Alston from her luckless father, in her view, was that she had never wanted more than she needed, or more than she could manage. Poor Papa’s whole political career had been like a dog chasing a taxi: he never would have known what to do if he’d actually caught what he was after. His daughter had not made that mistake, and so, two hundred years later, she was sitting in the back of a limo in Manhattan without a care in the world, wearing Comme des Garçons and Chanel sunglasses.

Perhaps there was such a thing as _too_ low a profile, though. Mrs. Alston hadn’t had a new apprentice approach her in more than fifteen years; without something to keep her busy she tended to lose track of time. It was lucky, actually, that Marie had come complaining to her when she did. 2016 had snuck up on her, and it would have been embarrassing to miss her cue because she’d forgotten what year it was.

Still. These things generally sorted themselves out, if you were patient. And Mrs. Alston was patient, above all things.

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm not going to tell you.


End file.
